Bronfman fellowship recipient announced
Pavitra Wickramasinghe is the second Concordia fine arts graduate to receive the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art.
The scholarship, given each year to one postgraduate from Concordia and one from the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM), offers Wickramasinghe $55,000 over the next two years to pursue research, creation and teaching opportunities and to develop her professional practice.
“It’s really an incredible opportunity,” says Wickramasinghe in response to the fellowship. “There’s a certain momentum that develops in the MFA program where you’re working a lot and experimenting a lot. It will be great not to lose that momentum.”
The Sri Lankan-born artist structures much of her multidisciplinary work through the desire to take things apart and put them back together, revealing the component parts and seams in her process and product.
At the May 11 event announcing the fellowship recipients Concordia’s dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Catherine Wild, described Wickramasinghe’s site-specific installations, which create a three-dimensional play of light and shadow with two-dimensional projections. “Pavitra fabricates sculptural surfaces that both embody and catch projected images, creating a sense of wonder where rationality is suspended.”
Wickramasinghe studied at the Alberta College of Art and Design before coming to Concordia. She has exhibited in Europe as well as several Canadian cities.
Currently working as an artist-in-residence at La Chambre Blanche in Quebec City, Wickramasinghe will use the fellowship to further work she began within her thesis project.
Claudine and Stephen Bronfman attended the presentation of the 2011 fellowships, created through their Family Foundation in December 2009. UQÀM recipient Aude Moreau attended, along with UQÀM’s dean of the Faculty of Arts, Louise Poissant, and rector Claude Corbo.
Related links:
• Pavitra Wickramasinghe
• The Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art
• Concordia's Faculty of Fine Arts